I'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice

100 Words about Baseball

Why I Love Baseball

There is no clock
90 feet between bases is genius
There are secret signs
Hanging curveballs are sexy
Numbers are magic: 755, 56, 7, 61, 1.12
Tinker to Evers to Chance
Ivy at Wrigley
The Green Monster
The suicide squeeze
Cracker Jack
Walt Whitman liked it
Jackie Robinson and Pee-Wee Reese
It just feels American
The seventh-inning stretch
Superstition
Guys in tight pants
Bull Durham
Centerfield
There’s no crying in baseball
Cooperstown
A great play at the plate
Chatter
Pepper
High socks
Tradition
Spring training
Keeping score
The rubber game
The infield fly rule
162 chances

Become a Fan

update on Alex

Alex is doing fairly well today - we was able to walk around a bit this
evening. We just talked to the orthopedist again about the blood work
they've done today and how he's responding and the issue is that there
are two possible diagnoses: septic arthritis (bacterial) or toxic
synovitis (viral). His white cell count is elevated, but not as high as
they'd expect with septic arthritis. Other counts are elevated, but
only nominally, and with septic arthritis he should be in a lot more
pain, unable to move his hip. But his pain level yesterday seemed
greater than would be expected with toxic synovitis. Finally, the
ultrasound, which showed some fluid but not much, doesn't do anything
to clear up the other inconclusive observations or results.

So that leaves us with two ways to be rule out septic arthritis: one is
to continue the aggressive approach with antibiotics, put him under
general anesthesia and aspirate his hip to test the fluid. This would
give us a clear-cut answer, but it would also be more traumatic for
Alex, and perhaps for no good reason other than giving us an easier
diagnosis.

The other option is be less aggressive, take him off the antibiotic and
closely observe him. IF his fever spikes and his pain and range of
movement worsens, then it's more likely to be septic arthritis and the
aggressive approach of aspirating his hip (and putting him under) is
called for. But if he continues to get better (which would be exactly
what would happen with toxic synovitis), he'll go home on Monday
afternoon and we'll just watch him for fever over the next few days.

I've already done a good bit of reading on both these conditions and
what the doctor said was exactly what I expected. We agree that it's in
Alex's best interest to go with the less aggressive and less invasive
approach. So we'll hang out here tomorrow with lots of observation and
they'll give him ibuprofen for pain (he hasn't wanted/need any pain
medication since last night, though). If he continues to improve,
they'll do another run of blood work on Monday morning to confirm his
counts are still moving in the right direction and we'll go home with
instructions to take his temp every few hours and call the doc and
return to the ER if his fever returns.